Why do I dance Tango?

* This is a response I gave to this question in a survey:

I am alive, and I know it. I feel life, and I am aware of being here and now.
How long is “now” going to last?
Being “here” has been nice for me. I grew up surrounded by love, with people who were good to me and wished good things for me. I am blessed. I know not everybody is so lucky.

I want to repay them. They gave me so much – I am not talking about quantity, but about quality: my family, my neighbors, teachers and friends, my country and this culture, which they passed on to me, and -perhaps I was just lucky-, anywhere I went I always found that people were good, extremely good to me.

Understanding, knowing what I am, as an example of what we all are, this particular way of being. I do not think this is the only possible way of existing: the amazing human body, our walk that is so unique, our wondrous gaze, our extremely dexterous hands that are the tools that create civilizations, that can give so much in a touch, that can embrace, and our mind that perceives so many shades of nuances in its limitless sensitivity, that also imagines, deduces, foresees and expresses with innumerable manifestations. I know we are eventually going to change, to exist in a completely different way, and perhaps our bodies and the machines that surround us today are going to become one thing, or, who knows, everything will turn out in a way that we cannot yet anticipate. Still, our existence will always be the existence of the world in which we are.

I remember a television series from my childhood about a man who was “rebuilt” with bionic limbs after an accident… Technology makes our bodies reach beyond its present limits, as technology has always done. The “raison d’être” of technology has always been to transform and empower our bodies, and what we are today, as a particular beings, as a way of existing, is also our creation.

How do we rise to this challenge, this invitation, this bet that existence delivered to us?

Beauty is, to me, the appropriate answer. Neither exterior beauty nor hidden beauty. Not external, not alienated beauty. A beauty that can live within our bodies and in our lives. A beauty that I do not need to put on a pedestal or behind glass. A kind of beauty that can manifest in a handshake, in our gaze, in an embrace, in our walk.

It has already been formulated in the tangos of the “Golden Era”, in the “códigos” of the milongas, and if you are lucky, and (hurry up!) get there in time… in the dance of the milongueros.

Because to be able to perceive all of this you need to train and study with passion, perseverance, patience, stamina and focus: that is why I dance Tango.

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Marcelo Solis

I was born in Argentina. Through my family and the community that saw my upbringing, I have been intimately involved with the culture of Tango all my life, and have been an Argentine Tango dance performer, choreographer and instructor for over 30 years. I profoundly love Tango dancing, music, and culture, particularly that of the Golden Era. I am a milonguero.

Comments (6)

So true…tango is teaching me to BE. just BE…my “self’ all the time.
Tango has been a spiritual journey for me and that’s what draws me to it. And like any spiritual journey, it involves unlearning, unlearning things we’ve learnt to survive in the world we’ve created for ourselves.
You said it best when you said, there can’t be a better way to living than being the “beauty” we are, in every handshake, in every gaze, in our walk. Tango does bring us to that core “beauty” that we all are.